Consent and Limits: Context and Consequences

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Inspired by the wonderful podcast Sips and Smacks, Episode 108, this started back in April as a post on accountability, discipline, and punishment. However, as I tried to write it, I realized I need to write a context piece giving my take on consent and limits first. The specifics are, in places, blurry and that’s intentional. I’m not writing about any one event but rather some recent and not-so-recent experiences that inform my notions of consent, how it’s given, and what it means.

It probably goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: this post is written solely from my perspective and experiences. It’s my narrative, my truth. That’s significant because in any narrative about any relationship, each person involved experiences things from their own perspective and within their own specific context. This shapes their narrative, that is, their experience of reality. Without getting too “narrative theory-ish,”  these differences shape each person’s “truth,” meaning that there’s rarely a single version of any experience involving more than one person. 

This post, as has always been the case with any post I make about our relationship and/or play, was read by and discussed with Paul before I posted it. In this case, I explicitly asked him to check it over for anything that was untrue, though he has his own perspectives based on his own experiences and misunderstandings, so before I posted it we could agree we’re operating from the same set of facts.

All of the following are based on how things have been between us for the past 25+ years — how they will be is something we’re still figuring out, literally day-by-day, a process that’s painful and wonderful. I’m writing this, in part, to try and tease out all this so I can understand where we are and imagine where we might go. Since neither of us have figured out or agreed how things will be going forward, I’m keeping this in the present.

Paul and I have been partnered in some form or other ¹ (1997) online only, long distance, (1998-2002) long distance, with in-person visits, (2002ish-2004) living together , (2004-present) married. basically since I delurked on the newsgroup.²I delurked in February 1997. Paul wrote the first “Pablo and Mija” story in March — he posted the first two in April 1997. Before that I’d never been spanked as an adult by *anyone.* Paul and I did a long-distance call in August 1997 that was a directed self-spanking as a serious punishment for a troubling real life issue between the two of us. That punishment, done via landline telephones using phone cards (yes, we are that old) in my dorm room was the first (adult) spanking either of us gave or received. Yet, even before this, we’d each playfully punished and disciplined the other with uniforms, essays, and lines. Those elements came naturally to the relationship –almost from our first exchanges.

Reading over Paul’s account of it, written for me and afterwards posted to the newsgroup, the early shades of the myriad ways accountability, and consensual non-consent to discipline and punishment are part of “our scene” are visible in that first punishment. Because of this, my limits and boundaries with Paul have framed my participation in the larger spanking scene. Negotiations and limits with other people exist, and have always existed, but those limits have always been created and lived within those I have with Paul, informing whatever I’ve considered doing with other people. There are, and always have been, a lot of things I do with Paul that I don’t do with anyone else and vice versa.

What Limits/Boundaries Are You Talking About?

Let’s start with a silly one. It could have gone away years ago,³In fact, I explicitly made a point of breaking this one while at TASSP in June 2025. but is funny and useful.

*Don’t Call Me “Sir” – this one that dates to late 1990s IRC, the digital space where Paul and I sometimes got to hang out with other newsgroup friends. It was great fun, mostly. But, because as soon as he partnered with me Paul became identified as a “top,” rather than a switch, some of the “TREW SUBS” (more on that later perhaps) decided he was a “Dom” and therefore had to be called “Sir” by an submissive in the room. Paul found this beyond annoying and balked at being called “sir” by random subs, who called their doms (pretend that’s capitalized) “master” (of course pretend that’s capitalized too). As we talked about this, me mostly amused, him mostly annoyed, I realized that my use of “sir,” something that sometimes happened spontaneously during punishment scenes, was deeply meaningful to Paul. He made it a rule/limit that no one could call him sir but me. Reciprocity being a thing, I told him, outside of school-type role-play, I wouldn’t use “sir” for anyone but him.

• • Why it is useful: Anyone who insists that they be called “Sir” after I tell them it’s a term I only use for my partner is waving a giant red AVOID THIS GUY flag.
  • Why it is funny: Finding other terms requires creativity and a lot of opportunities for laughing and playful play. The best were with Tony Elka who agreed I could use another word as a substitute for “sir.”  So I counted cane strokes with  “[insert number] – thank you, DORK.”

Ones that mattered:

Punishment – Outside of play⁴By this I mean role-play, in that any accountability I have to anyone other than Paul is “play” even when it’s deep, dark, and serious or based on something that might have actually happened between me and the other person. scenes, I don’t have rules with and am not disciplined or punished by anyone but Paul. This has always been the case since I came into the adult spanking scene in 1997. As far as I know, the reverse is also true. This limit is important to me — it speaks to how “real” accountability has (or in some cases, hasn’t) worked between us. This dates to the first year of our relationship and formally became fixed as part of our wedding day and night — it’s part of the promises we gave each other after our legal ceremony.  Within this part of our relationship, Paul is in control. He decides when and if to punish, and has always had complete say 0ver how. That is, he decides what I’m punished for and what that punishment will be. Within this I can negotiate, ask for limits and changes, and, of course, withdraw my consent and refuse to be disciplined or punished.

• • In practice that’s happened all of once so far as I can remember – when I refused to have writing a post for the PB be part of a punishment and he ultimately agreed that what I wrote for the PB wasn’t a space where he should exercise control.⁵After he agreed with me, I told him I *chose* to write about it for the PB.

Pre-checking – From the beginning of our relationship, we’d agreed that before either of us meets someone new and/or engages in any kind of play with someone else, we check in with each other first. Either of us can veto the meeting or the play—for any reason, no justification required. This understanding started informally, shaped by what we’d read in online communities⁶Here I recall that The Ethical Slut came out in 1997. One of the authors, Janet Hardy was an active member of both alt.sex.spanking and soc.sexuality. spanking. The book was discussed a great deal on the group. and by our own early conversations. We later formalized it while still long distance, after I made a reckless decision one evening to play with someone I’d met in a random AOL chatroom. That experience was a painful reminder of why informed consent matters. It resulted in an injury that required medical attention and left a scar that lasted over three years. While I’m not great at resisting impulse, I am solid when it comes to honoring promises and agreed-upon limits. Especially during the times we lived apart, the “check-in first” rule became an important safety net—one I’ve never felt comfortable abandoning. It serves as a built-in pause to make sure that everyone involved (not just us, but any potential play partners) is on the same page. It’s a way to ensure that consent is not just given, but given with clarity, shared expectations, and genuine enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, this was the one that Paul, for various reasons, skipped. The fallout has been, intense.

What Happened:

• • Timeline:
    • Late Nov / early Dec 2024: After weeks of dripped hints, I realized Paul had broken our “pre-check limit” back in Fall 2023 when we were working with our first couple therapist. He’d arranged multiple FaceTime play sessions with a mutual friend while I was traveling for work—no prior discussion, no follow-up disclosure.
  • Why I missed it
    • Small hints appeared, but I ignored them and didn’t press for answers.
    • Truth emerged nearly a year later through the friend’s social-media posts.
  • Therapist’s insights
    • By the time the story broke though my fogged inattention, we were on marriage therapist #2.
    • She named my avoidance: choosing not to see and not to question were still choices—ones that protected me from difficult truths until it didn’t.

Collateral damage

• • Playing with a mutual friend in secret upset other too-fragile limits, harming trust and friendships.
  • Early 2024: I even invited the friend to visit and encouraged their in-person play, unaware of her prior intense online scenes with Paul.
  • The personal impacts have been devastating. That December 2024 reckoning became, for me anyway, the most painful episode in our relationship.
  • It ultimately ended a valued friendship, the first time I’ve lost a friend to something other than distance or drifting apart.

What some experts said

In late November, early December 2024 when I realized what happened, I tried to find someone to advise me on how to get past feeling betrayed. I ended up having appointments with two therapists who described themselves as “kink affirming” and two whose practices work with a number of polyamous and consensual non-monogamy dynamics. Though none could offer the quick fix I wanted (apparently that doesn’t exist), of the four, I got the most out of  the ones who worked with poly relationships. Generally they all talked about the following:

• • All four therapists I consulted in late 2024 reiterated: prior, explicit consent is non-negotiable; my discovering the truth via social media amplified the betrayal. As one said when I told them I didn’t have a problem with them playing so why am I feeling so devastated and betrayed that they’d already played months before,:

    “I’d give my sister $2000 tomorrow, but would still feel upset if she lifted $20 from my wallet when I was in the kitchen.”

  • Consent needs to be informed, ongoing, and enthusiastically given. It needs to be freely given, prior, and, ideally, unpressured.
  • Many poly agreements keep mutual friends off-limits because added intimacy can strain friendships.
  • Key takeaway: Even in consensual non-monogamy, transparency beats retroactive explanations; once consent is bypassed, it’s hard to repair the breach.

Transparency Before and After – we’d agreed we can ask to hear about the other’s playing with other people in as much or little detail as is needed or desired to be comfortable. This is one we pulled early on from discussions on the newsgroup, probably with some basis in The Ethical Slut. It’s also one I specifically need. Without it, I’m not comfortable opening up play to other people, it leaves me too insecure and feels too much like keeping secrets. In my first marriage, my ex-husband had several affairs, the last and worst with a mutual friend. One of the things I’ve always valued about the way play with others happens in the spanking scene is that honesty and prior explicit consent all around are the norm. It isn’t magic — people still experience jealousy and misunderstandings sometimes, but it definitely helps me feel more confident.

The “A” thing – You can guess since I’m not even writing the words out, the reason for this limit is one created by my sense of sexual privacy. For me anything touching on  “bottom play/punishment” are incredibly intimate and private acts, ones I’ve only shared with Paul. It took two years for me to even raise the topic. Though it’s not his kink, it’s something that he’s said fits into his spanking play. For my part, I’m squicked thinking about either of us engaging in it with anyone else. Though I know this is not the case for everyone, for me, anal play is like penetrative sex in its level of intimacy. Not only have I never done anything along these lines with anyone else, I’ve never considered it. Because of that, I’m still working through how I’m feeling about Paul forgetting about this limit.

Consent in Context:

Consent requires prior discussion and informed agreement about acts and boundaries given freely and without coercion or fear of retaliation. In practice that may be impossible, but, in practice, pressure should be minimized on all sides. To be informed, consent needs to be explicit and ongoing, with agreements made enthusiastically each time.

Importantly, consent can never be retroactive.

What listening, reading, and talking with kink affirming/positive therapists over the past few months taught me is that Paul and my having done a sort of “set it and forget it” negotiation, ones that set our limits 20+ years ago and then not discussing them for years after was ridiculous and all but insured we’d have serious problems at some point. Unfortunately it happened at quite possibly the worst moment it could, when our trust in each other was already pretty weak. Ideally, there’d have been regular discussions, check-ins every time either of us played to see how we were feeling, and making adjustments accordingly. We should have expected and discussed  conflicts, jealousies, or resentments.

Right. To say that wasn’t the way we did it is a massive understatement. I don’t only mean recently. I mean ever, always.

Why? We’re both conflict avoidant. Neither of us play with other people very often. And, our “talking” pattern was formed during a long distance relationship with an eight hour timezone difference. Paul called me every morning at 8AM his time, midnight mine. The effect of this, at least for me, is that I tend to think about our relationship most when I’m about to fall asleep. Starting a serious relationship discussion at bedtime is rarely a good idea. For a good example of what’s happened between us all to often, read this.  (This is me. I really wish I was joking.)

In our defense, we weren’t just avoiding these conversations, we seriously didn’t know we should have them. The discourse about limits and consent back in the 1990s put emphasis on negotiation, but not on it being something ongoing, discussed every time with enough depth that both people have the opportunity and responsibility to discuss what and how they feel. I’d also taken on, somewhere, that my experiencing jealousy or insecurity was something to be embarrassed about and hide rather than something expected and normal. Because we weren’t having these conversations and we weren’t doing that needed emotional work, there are a number of misunderstandings that then themselves caused problems. Paul, for example, thought I always found it painful when he played with other people and, therefore, avoided discussing his play with me. (The opposite is the case. My impulse in consensual non-monogamy falls closest to “Kitchen Table Polyamory”(KTP) – everything done above board with transparency and discussion all-around.)

Paul’s beliefs about my feelings came out in a comment hel made during therapy in Fall 2023 — that I always had had issues with him playing with other people. Hearing that knocked me for a loop. I knew I didn’t feel that way — that while I’d struggled with insecurity and jealousy when we were long distance and going months between our visits,we’d always encouraged each other to play outside our relationship, especially since we’d started living together. I knew I’d enjoyed Paul playing with our friends, wanted him to play with them, that his doing so had made me feel closer to them, and that I’ve been thrilled when I’ve had the chance to watch him playing with other people. When I questioned his belief and asked why he thought that, Paul reminded me that on his first trip to the US that when he’d played with a friend of ours. I’d told him afterwards that I’d taken a bath and cried during their play. This shocked me ever more — first that he was basing how I feel about him playing with other people now to our first experience with it from 1998. But, even more importantly, because he’d missed the point of the story when I’d told it to him, probably because hearing I’d cried had been so disturbing. So this view he has of how I feel about him playing with other people was, in part, based on a more than 25 year old misunderstanding.

Holy communication problems Batman!

Way Back in May 1998

When Paul visited me for the first time, we ended up doing more traveling and visiting than I expected. We spent time with friends in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, and also made a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, to see another friend. That Arizona visit stands out in my memory—mostly because we seemed to spend the whole trip wandering in and out of leather shops, which felt both fun and oddly bonding.

One night during that trip, Paul and our friend did a spanking scene in her hotel room while I took a bath in the adjoining bathroom. It was the first time he’d played with anyone other than me—though to be fair, the only time he’d spanked me in person before that was on the first night of his visit. I could hear them clearly through the wall. I knew what they were doing, and more importantly, I wanted them to do it. My hope was that it would be enjoyable and meaningful for both of them.

That feeling—of wanting them to have a good experience—was shaped by what I’d been through in my vanilla marriage. Barely a year before, I’d left my husband after a long history of infidelity. The final betrayal had been especially traumatic: my sister and I walked in on him having sex with someone I thought of as a friend in his office. That incident pushed me to separate from him and ultimately file for divorce—a decision I might not have made without the upcoming visit from Paul giving me something to move toward. The aftermath wasn’t easy. The woman involved blamed me, harassed me with months of hang-up calls whenever she knew I was alone, and eventually slashed our car tires two nights in a row. The harassment only stopped after the police intervened and I obtained a restraining order. (I also moved back to California which put a fair amount of distance between us.

So as I sat in that Arizona hotel bathtub, listening to Paul and our friend, I couldn’t help but reflect on the contrast. What they were doing was consensual, open, and considerate. They had both checked in with me separately, made sure I understood what they intended to do, and asked several times if I was okay with it. I was. I appreciated the care they showed—not just in asking for consent, but in making sure I felt seen and included.

That night, I created a kind of ritual for myself. While I bathed, I let myself cry over my first marriage in a way I never had. I scrubbed my skin, not to erase the past, but to mark that I was moving on from it. When I was done, I slid down until my face was beneath the water, looking up through it. In my mind, I was letting go of that former life—the lies, the betrayal—and choosing something better: a relationship grounded in honesty, mutual respect, and emotional safety.

I got out of the tub and got dressed, feeling lighter—like I had truly left the past behind. What lay ahead felt so much more hopeful.

(And it has been.)

Then the three of us went out to dinner.

Consensual Non-Monogamy

As it turned out, in the short period of time I looked, I couldn’t find a therapist who works with BDSM couples who was willing give me advice about my relationship with Paul. Why? Ironically because the ones I contacted either knew who I was through The Treehouse or some of our other online spaces. One of them suggested I might be better served speaking with therapists who specialized in consensual non-monogamy and how to negotiate relationships rather than someone from the BDSM/kink community. This had the bonus of them being easier to find, at least here in Los Angeles.

This ended up being fascinating, gave me some new things to read and think about, and will likely be a post of its own once I finish the recommended books. What we discussed, aside from the hammering I took on  “retroactive consent isn’t a thing” conversations, were circumstances where I’m comfortable and feel safe and happy with non-monogamy, and the ones where I’m not.  How to talk about it. How to listen. Questions to ask. All of that. Sadly, both of them also felt that that finding out about Paul and our friend playing behind my back and his not having discussed this with me before or after, was from my perspective an affair. That, coupled with the breakdown of my friendship with his affair partner over the prior few months, meant that I was not going to be able to resolve this situation and should instead focus on rebuilding Paul and my connection before he left. Given that this was our couples therapist’s (who’s also Paul’s therapist) advice, that’s what we’ve been doing.

An aside: If you’re in Los Angeles, one of the therapists I saw was through Kindman and Co. They were quick to reply to my appointment request and were wonderful to talk with. Another helpful site and Southern California practice focusing on navigating poly relationships is Judith Schwab Therapy. It’s been sobering to realize what questions I’ve either avoided or hadn’t known to ask.

What’s been your experience with navigating monogamy and/or non-monogamy? What have you found that works in your relatiionships?

Resources: 

Clardy, Justin L. Why It’s OK to Not Be Monogamous. Routledge, 2023.

Davidson, Erin. Thriving in Non-Monogamy An Ethical Slut’s Guide: Overcome Jealousy, Enjoy Sex, and Honor Yourself. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2020.

Hardy, Janet W., and Dossie Easton. The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love. Ten Speed Press, 2017.

Phoenix, Lola. The Anxious Person’s Guide to Non-monogamy. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2022.

Sigler, Stephanie. The Clinician’s Guide to Ethical Non-monogamous Relationships: Working with Clients with Alternative Lifestyles. Taylor & Francis, 2024.

• 1
  (1997) online only, long distance, (1998-2002) long distance, with in-person visits, (2002ish-2004) living together , (2004-present) married.
• 2
  I delurked in February 1997. Paul wrote the first “Pablo and Mija” story in March — he posted the first two in April 1997.
• 3
  In fact, I explicitly made a point of breaking this one while at TASSP in June 2025.
• 4
  By this I mean role-play, in that any accountability I have to anyone other than Paul is “play” even when it’s deep, dark, and serious or based on something that might have actually happened between me and the other person.
• 5
  After he agreed with me, I told him I *chose* to write about it for the PB.
• 6
  Here I recall that The Ethical Slut came out in 1997. One of the authors, Janet Hardy was an active member of both alt.sex.spanking and soc.sexuality. spanking. The book was discussed a great deal on the group.